1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an electrostatic image recording method and apparatus therefor, and more particularly to improvements in a method of forming an electrostatic latent image by use of a series of recording styluses and an apparatus for carrying out the method.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There is known an electrostatic image recording apparatus in which an electrostatic latent image is formed on an electrostatic image recording drum by use of a series of recording arranged in parallel to the axis of rotation of the drum along the surface thereof and the toner image developed from the latent image is finally transferred to a steel plate for printing thereon markings to indicate various kinds of information such as the destination of shipment, the dimensions of the steel plate, the date of manufacture etc. In this kind of apparatus, the size of the image is large and the diameter of the recording styluses is as large as 0.3 to 1.5 mm. Further, in order to prevent the toner particles not removed from the drum by the cleaning process from sticking to the recording styluses, there is provided a gap between the recording styluses and the surface of the electrostatic latent image recording drum. The discharge gap is as large as 30 to 150.mu..
In the above described apparatus, the latent image formed on the drum is a pattern consisting of a number of dots. Thus, the toner image developed therefrom is also a pattern consisting of dots. Since the speed of travel of the steel plates printed with markings by the above described print marking apparatus is fairly high and the developing time is short, the density of the central portion of the individual dots of the toner image is apt to be low.